Upsets & Switches

The Korean war had knocked both major political parties off the track. Old issues had vanished in a puff of acrid smoke. But by last week the politicians were getting their wheels under them again and were even blowing some preliminary whistles.

Democratic National Chairman William Boyle Jr. chugged into the White House to report to the chief, and chugged out again, to predict solid Democratic gains in November. He said confidently that the Democrats would retire Taft, Capehart and Donnell from the Senate. (Democrats were sure that "Mr. Republican," Ohio's Taft, was hurting himself by his opposition to the President's mobilization program.)

Countered Republican National Chairman Guy Gabrielson: "I honestly believe that we have the best chance we have had in years to take both houses."

No "Hail to the Chief." There were the usual brave boasts from the professionals. Behind them lay unspoken doubts and abandoned platforms. No longer would the Democrats sing of the Brannan Plan and Fair Deal benefits; no longer would the Republicans stress the evils of creeping socialism and deficit spending.

A new Republican line was shaping up: 1) the Administration had coddled Communists; 2) the Administration wasn't prepared for Korea even after spending all those $56 billion on the armed forces; 3) the Administration had followed a blind and disastrous policy in the Far East.

This week four Republican members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (Wiley, Smith, Hickenlooper and Lodge) issued a statement blaming Yalta, Potsdam and Roosevelt's and Truman's foreign policies for most of the world's current ills. The fifth member, Vandenberg, was too ill to take part in the draft, but his office announced that he was in "general agreement."

In all that was good in U.S. foreign policy (e.g., U.N., the Marshall Plan), the Republicans had joined in genuine bipartisanship, said the statement. In all that was bad, the Republicans had not been consulted. The Administration, they said, had given the Kremlin a "green light to grab whatever it could in China, Korea and Formosa."

This did not mean that the Republicans would denounce the war effort. "We'll man the pumps and unroll the hose," said Colorado's Senator Millikin dryly. "But damned if we'll sing, 'Hail to the Fire Chief.' "

A Look at the Record. A Democratic line was also shaping up, but until there were military victories to crow over, it was curiously defensive. It consisted in arguing that the records of Republicans on defense appropriations, foreign programs, Korean aid would not bear very close scrutiny: the Democrats might not have done enough, but they might have done more had not the Republicans so often opposed what the Democrats did do.

Both sides recognized that it was not so much their own effort, but the course of the war which would shape the election outcome. For more reasons than the normal ones, Democratic politicians hoped that next November would see U.S. forces well on the way to victory.

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